Preliminary results show ANC's narrow lead over DA in South Africa's municipal elections

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Preliminary results released early Thursday showed South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) had a narrow lead over its main opposition rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), in the municipal elections held Wednesday.

The interim results released by the electoral commission, as of 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), with about 15 percent of the ballots counted, showed the ANC secured 31.76 percent of the vote, slightly higher than the DA's 31.23 percent.

The ANC beat its rivals in six of the country's nine provinces -- Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State and North West.

The DA led in Gauteng and Western Cape, and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party), in KwaZulu-Natal.

Preliminary proportional representation results also showed the DA outperformed the ANC in several major metropolitan municipalities, such as Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Nelson Mandela Bay, besides its stronghold Cape Town, by a substantial margin.

The 2026 local government elections represented a major test for the ANC amid years of declining voter support. In the 2021 elections, the party received less than half of the national vote for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994. It subsequently lost its parliamentary majority in the 2024 general elections.